I don’t care for extreme heat. For some reason I seem poorly equipped (from a physiological standpoint) to handle it, so I tend to stay out of it. But since I was already handling an outdoor task with a friend, and we had finished said task, I decided to do some photo fetching. Once again the sun was a giant orb in an otherwise hazy sky, so I bolted to one of my Secret Spots to aim for an unusual perspective.

I used to live in Big Sky, Montana and work for the ski patrol there. I basically got paid to snowboard all day at a time when few resorts actually allowed snowboards; the sport was pretty new in the late 80’s. My best friend Corey was from Detroit Lakes, and referred to North Dakotans as “Flatlanders.” One would have thought the drive through the Badlands would have enlightened him, but he still held the view of many Minnesotans whose only experience with North Dakota is the Red River Valley. Well, the land surrounding Bismarck-Mandan is anything but flat.

This sunset is taking place just north of the Square Buttes. If you go out to Double Ditch Indian Village and park in the little parking lot on the north end, you’ll see some educational signage describing the Square Buttes. They’re a little hard to see from there, as they reside a few miles north on the Mandan side…but they’re there, they’re enormous, they’re real, and they’re spectacular. Beside the two large, flat-topped buttes sits this rugged set of features, overlooking the mighty Missouri.

I’ve had some neat Square Butte photos before, even at sunset, but this time I left out the wide, flat buttes to just concentrate on the jagged lines of the hills to the north. Once the sun had receded past the horizon, however…that’s a different story. With a different lighting situation and the sun out of the picture:

This allowed me to capture the last remaining bit of color in the sky and highlight the wide open area of the river without having the distraction of the sun on the horizon. I’m the kind of guy who, if shown a photo like this with the sun still poking up, would try to get a closer look at the sun. So in this case I decided to accomplish the task of capturing the moment with two photos. This area looks completely different within the span of five or ten minutes.

If you get out of Bismarck-Mandan even a very short distance and look around, you’ll see some really dramatic landscapes. We have lots of hills, buttes, mesas, and valleys that tend to blend into the scenery unless one is looking for them. For example, the next time you’re stopped in the southbound lane of State Street at the intersection with Divide Avenue, look straight ahead toward the southwest horizon. There are some pretty cool hills out there! When the sun is right, it looks like what we’d imagine as a Southwestern USA horizon. Just because ours have grass on them doesn’t make those rugged hills any less beautiful…and they’re right in our own backyard.

“Golden” was the color of the sky last night, and also how I would describe the opportunity to watch a dramatic sky with my lovely wife. We’d been out Geocaching earlier, and on our way back to Bismarck we decided to walk across the Memorial Bridge. The clouds to the north were quite cool, and the bridge itself isn’t going to be around much longer, so we decided to take a stroll out to the middle and watch the sunset.

Not only was the sun creating a pretty nice show to the west, but there was a pretty neat cloud formation to the east. Those clouds later became a thunderstorm that moved off to the northeast, but in this case they just provided a neat backdrop to the BSC hill.

In the mean time, things were starting to roll in the west. Literally. The low clouds were rolling, causing ripples of reflected light in the sky as they formed. Those same glowing ripples were reflected in the water below, making for a really nice scene.

This is the scene as things wound down, with the sun disappearing over the horizon and our departure back to the Bismarck side of the river. Aside from all the pigeon droppings, the Memorial Bridge really is a nice walk. With the sun setting so far north this time of year, it provides a great view up the river in the evening. If you haven’t taken advantage of this walk, you don’t have much longer! The new bridge is set to open next year, which means the demolition and removal of the current bridge. This could be the last summer we have to enjoy it.

While out and about with my wife and boy, we saw a fantastic sunset in the making. We pointed the car toward Double Ditch and were able to stop by that old familiar fencepost just in time to catch some fantastic reflections across the Missouri River.

Thankfully the water level has come up quite a bit on this stretch of the Missouri; it had been Sandbar Central prior to the rains that have blessed our area as of late. That also makes for nicer pictures; river sand doesn’t reflect sunrises very well!

Our family spent the evening at a friend’s place northwest of Mandan. My friend and I decided to walk the land, since he’s got a bunch of it. As we were wrapping up our survey of the area I was able to snap this blazing orange sunset shot, complete with streaming rays and majestic hills. Life in the country sure is good.

I had just left a Saturday evening meeting at church when I saw that we were actually going to have a sunset, unlike all those past cloudy evenings! One of the most important elements of a good sunset photo is actually the foreground object, so I scrambled to think of a good place to go. I didn’t have much time because, as they say, daylight was a-wastin’. So I bolted to Misty Waters to get an angle at the Square Buttes and the river.

When I got there I got a nice tower, the buttes, and a reflection off of the river…all lined up for the taking! I had to stand on top of the truck to get the shot I wanted, but that’s never stopped me before. It feels good to get a nice sunset photo, something that I’d been known for in the past but have had a hard time getting in recent memory. Part of it is that I’m a husband and a dad, and sunsets are occurring later and later in the day. The other reason is that the rains with which we’ve been blessed lately also block out the sun. I’m more than happy to go without blazing sunsets for a while in order to get that rain!

The sunset from Double Ditch on Friday night actually wasn’t very remarkable. As my family and I prepared to leave, however, we caught a hint of pink in the clouds to the east. The sun was up to something on the horizon, past the clouds that were obscuring our view! I turned north instead of south, to see if we could get a good view, when I noticed this sunset on the western horizon.

These are bluffs just north of Double ditch, with a little bit of a stack from Center to give perspective. I saw the color start to develop just over the horizon, set the tripod and got the camera ready, and then the deep, brilliant reds began to show. We took PJ out for his first sunset with mommy and daddy Friday night, and the skies did not disappoint us! We just had to work a little harder to see it.

While poking around the water other day, I noticed that the sun had hit just the right spot. While it was quite light out that evening, the clouds had a pretty cool effect on the water. Getting just the right angle with the camera on its side, I managed to capture the water, the skies, and no buildings. I never expected to be able to do that on the edge of Southport!